


Right in Front of You

by fleurlb



Category: Right in Front of You - Christian Kane (Song)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 08:08:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6846457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurlb/pseuds/fleurlb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A love story in three acts, based on the Christian Kane song "Right in Front of You"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right in Front of You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IShouldBeWriting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IShouldBeWriting/gifts).



> Thank you for the opportunity to write a story for this lovely song. Any mistakes are my own.

Lindy was used to seeing her pictures on the tabloids. After two decades in Hollywood followed by seven years of marriage to the “most influential director of his generation,” tabloid photos were usually as expected and noticed as wallpaper. 

But the paper she now held in her hands shattered her calm, like elevator music abruptly switching to death metal. There was her husband Marco. On a topless beach in France. With his arm around a woman who was most definitely not her. Whispering into the mystery woman's ear while a sexy smile played on her perfectly-shaped lips. 

He was supposed to be shooting a Holocaust film in Poland. He was not supposed to be cheating on her with an up-and-coming young actress, the sort of shooting star that arrived in Hollywood by the bus-full several times a day. In fact, she was in the airport to meet him. 

Lindy gripped the edge of the counter for support, letting the paper fall back into the rack. She was dimly aware of people buzzing around her as she struggled to avoid making a scene. She felt a strong hand on her arm, then several smaller hands on her legs and the hem of her shirt. She breathed in familiar scents – chicory, lemon, bubble gum, baby powder.

“Are you all right?” asked Paul before a clamor of children's voices drowned out any answer she might have. 

Lindy pressed her lips together, looked Paul in the eye, and nodded. 

“Alex, why don't you take the twins over to pick out something for the flight?” Lindy used the voice that her own mother used for non-question questions when compliance was not actually optional. 

Alex sighed and rolled his eyes, in that 10-going-on-19 way that he had, but reluctantly grabbed the hands of 5-year old twins, Isabelle and Jacob. Mercifully, they worshipped their older half-brother and were happy to do anything with him.

That left Paul, her nanny, standing in front of her, holding 9-month old Quinn, who gave her a drooling smile and reached out with his chubby arms. She held out her own arms and Paul handed over the baby, then steered her to a quiet corner of the shop where he could still keep an eye on the other three children.

Being present and active as a mother was a point of pride for Lindy, but Paul was the magician who made it possible. He'd been with her for 10 years, hired because Lindy had wanted Alex to have a male presence in his life, even when he'd been too young to know the difference. When Marco arrived on the scene a few years later, he'd lobbied hard for her to fire “the manny”, but she'd refused. He'd finally backed down, but the snide comments about the manliness of a man who watched children for a living were an occasional buzzing fly that she'd slap down or ignore. 

“Are you all right?” he asked again. Even after 10 years of living in California, his voice was still pure East London. It made a lot of people discount or underestimate him, but Lindy had refused to play Henry Higgins for him. She liked the edginess of the accent.

“I'm...not sure what to do. You saw it, right?”

Paul nodded, but said nothing.

“I don't want to see him right now, but I don't want to disappoint the children.”

“The jet will fly anywhere you want the jet to fly, won't it?” 

Lindy smiled. “I suppose it will.”

Paul pulled out his phone. “Let me make some arrangements. You can decide when to tell the kids that this is a surprise day.”

She reached out and touched his tanned arm, giving it a squeeze. Her “thank-you” was wispy, her relief apparent but her energy drained. Quinn wriggled in her arms, and she stepped away to supervise the other three. And the truth was, she wanted to be just as surprised when Paul told her the change of plans.

\---//---  
_Five months later_

Paul checked on Quinn first, deftly moving the boy's leg out from between the bars of the crib. In a pink bedroom with a frilly pink canopy bed, Isabelle was sleeping in nearly the same position that she'd been tucked into. And in the third room, Jacob was sprawled sideways, his head dangling precariously off the side of the bed. Paul scooped him up and repositioned him. 

Paul knocked on Alex's closed door, then eased the door open and ducked his head in. “Lights out, mate. For real this time.”

Alex looked up from a thick book with dragons on the cover. “Just let me finish this chapter.”

“Your mum will have my guts for garters. Close it. Now.”

The boy reluctantly slotted a bookmark into place and dropped the book on the floor. He grimaced as he turned out the bedside light. Paul reckoned he'd be reading under the covers by iPhone light in 30 seconds, but that was not the hill he wanted to die on.

He headed downstairs and into the living room, where Lindy was hunched over a script, memorizing lines. 

“10 o'clock and all is well. I'm clocking off for the night.”

“Could I trouble you for some help with this? Shooting starts tomorrow and I'm struggling. First script after Quinn and I'm afraid I've got baby brain. Either that, or it's early onset dementia. Who can tell at my age?” She giggled nervously.

“I'm sure it's just that you're expecting too much of yourself, as usual.” He plucked the script from her hands and sat down on the couch. His knee was casually on the couch, his elbow resting on the couch back, so he could face her. 

“I'm basically playing myself. Playing right to type. A middle aged divorcee who is trying to get back into the dating game. In this scene, you're the guy I'm casually seeing, and I'm telling you my feelings for the first time.” Her words carried a trace of bitterness. 

“All right.” He looked down at the script to get his bearings.

“I'll need to fully play the scene. I'm worried about being able to hit marks and remember lines.”

“Right so.” Paul stood up and let Lindy move him to an arm chair. “Looks like you start on an entrance.”

Lindy nodded and left the room. When she came back in, she was standing up straighter and moving more deliberately. Paul hadn't run lines with her for many years, but he could see that she was tentative and not fully in character. 

“Dave, we need to talk,” she said as she perched on the edge of the coffee table.

“Aw shit, in the history of the world, no good ever followed those four words,” read Paul, internally cringing at the obvious laugh line.

“Well, maybe this will be the exception that proves the rule.”

Paul scanned the stage instructions and saw that he was supposed to perch on the edge of seat and narrow the space between them. When he did, he was immediately distracted by Lindy's closeness. When she looked into his eyes and said her next line, his heart started to flutter and he nearly lost his place. He managed to read his line, but his mind was elsewhere.

She reached out and gently ran a finger over his cheek, and he was dimly aware that she was tracing a scar that the character had. He felt a tingling sensation creep through his limbs and settle in his stomach. He tried to remind himself that this was not real. Real was 4am screaming wake ups and cleaning up baby puke. That was his reality in Lindy's world.

But the truth was that their relationship had been changing, deepening. He'd always been part of her family, but things had been different since her marriage had imploded. His feelings had grown, complicated twists of ivy feeding off the deep roots of their long acquaintance. He felt like he knew Lindy better than anyone at this point. And he was struck by the impression of reaching a crossroads. They could keep trundling down the known path, pretending that everything was the same. Or they could make that left turn and explore new territory together.

He was dimly aware of her voice trailing off, and he managed to mumble the next line. But he hadn't read ahead to the next stage instruction and was unprepared for Lindy's kiss. The gentle brush of the lips grew in heat and intensity until she was practically in his lap. She broke it off after what seemed like a lifetime.

“How's that for fireworks?” she asked with a sly smile.

The script dropped from Paul's hands and he stood up, unceremoniously unseating her. “I'm sorry, I can't do this anymore.”

She blinked, confused. “I don't think that's Dave's line.”

“No, it's not a line. I'm sorry, but I just can't do this anymore.”

“ _This_ being run lines with me? I'm sorry if I overstepped with with kiss, but I wanted to make sure I could remember the line after it.”

“It's not the running lines, t's the the blurring of lines. Lindy, I can't be your hired help and your best friend and your boyfriend substitute anymore.”

“Are you....quitting?” 

“If I quit this easy, would you let me?” He asked. 

“What? No! You've been with me forever. You're family.” Lindy's cheeks were reddening, and she was fully herself, free of the cardboard character she'd been playing behind the script.

“Lindy, we've been dancing around something for a while. Pretending things were the same ever since that day in the airport. But you know that they're not. And you know that I could be something to more to you and the kids. And I think you know I want to be.”

She looked away. He could practically see the thought bubble above her head. How afraid she was to end up some tabloid cliche. Middle-aged woman robs cradle with much younger manny. How he hated that word and the way it diminished his job. 

“I've stood by you when no one else did. But I can't stand right in front of you forever.” 

If ten years in Hollywood had taught Paul anything, it was when to make a graceful exit. He didn't wait for Lindy to look at him, he walked out of the living room and headed straight for his room.

\---//---

Lindy was on set early the next morning, physically at least. Her mind was back in the living room, back with Paul, back with feelings that she had only been dimly aware of. But now that she saw them, it was all she could see, like one of those trick holographic images. 

She did her lines, perfectly. Did everything that was expected of her much faster than anyone had hoped. She was professional and polite. But her mind remained a million miles away.

She was relieved when the director sent her home in the early afternoon. She nearly told the driver to take her up to the canyon for a hike, but she knew that she was just delaying the inevitable. She needed to talk to Paul. 

It was naptime for Quinn and the other kids were in school. She found Paul in the laundry room, folding tiny socks while humming to himself. She paused in the doorway and watched him, feeling the weight of how right he'd been settle over her. She could feel her petty concerns and insecurities floating away like bubbles. He was so right for her, in so many ways. She'd ignored and minimized it for years, but she was ready to let the feelings come home.

“Please don't quit. We need you,” she said. He looked up, startled by her sudden presence.

“We?” he questioned.

She closed the space between him in three long strides and put her hand on top of his.

“I,” she admitted, without a trace of doubt. “I need you. You're a wish that I didn't even know I'd made.”

“That's quite a line,” he said with a smile.

“It's no line,” she said as she leaned into him, feeling the truth of it and the possibilities for the future settle around them. They were home, and they both knew it.

/fin


End file.
